An automobile transmission includes a number of bearing cups and cones that carry rotating bearings. The rotating bearings can be removed easily with snips, leaving the bearing cup or cone, which is difficult to remove and replace because of other, closely oriented structure, such as a transmission case.
In the case of a transmission bearing cone or bearing cup, the cones and cups often times surround a transmission shaft that is very difficult and time consuming to remove and replace. Presently, tools are available for contact against an inner surface of bearings, including transmission cones, for removal and replacement after the transmission shaft is removed, such as disclosed in my U.S. Pat. No. 4,339,865. While such tools are extremely useful for removal and replacement of bearings when the inner diameter is unencumbered by a shaft or other transmission part, there exits a need in the transmission repair art, and generally, for a tool capable of removal of bearings, wherein an upwardly extending shaft or other mechanical device extends upwardly through the bearing cup or cone, by contacting the bearing cup or cone from an outer diameter, thereby eliminating the step of transmission shaft removal. Further, the apparatus of the present invention includes a pressure pad for insertion onto the structure that the bearing cone surrounds where there is no upwardly extending shaft or other mechanical part, so that the bearing cone can be removed over the pressure pad with the pressure pad in position. In another embodiment, the apparatus is designed to remove bearings by contact from an unencumbered internal diameter of the bearing cup.
Presently, bearings, such as automatic transmission bearing cups or cones, are removed by first removing an internally disposed transmission shaft so that the cone can be grasped from an inner diameter with a tool such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,339,865; or the bearing cups and cones are removed very crudely, after shaft removal, by impacting the cup or cone with a hammer, sometimes after first heating the cup or cone with a torch to loosen the bearing from a surrounding transmission case.
In one embodiment, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus capable of bearing removal by contact of the bearing from an outer diameter so that internal parts, such as a transmission shaft, can remain in working position during the removal and replacement process. The apparatus is adjustable to accommodate bearings of various sizes and provides constant removal force around the entire periphery of the bearing for aligned removal without scoring internally disposed apparatus, such as an upwardly extending transmission shaft.
A patent to McCord, U.S. Pat. No. 2,646,619, describes a bearing removing tool which includes a plurality of bearing-contacting shoulders that are flexibly biased radially so that the shoulders can be initially disposed behind a bearing by compressing the shoulders radially to spread behind the bearing when the tool is inserted to the proper depth. Such a tool is inefficient because, depending upon the size of the bearing, the shoulders which should be flush against an annular bearing surface, and aligned to provide a maximum and non-slipping driving force, usually are not in full contact with the annular bearing surface. The driving shoulders of a tool such as that disclosed in the McCord patent have only a single unbiased diameter and therefore are flush against the bearing for removal only when the bearing is of the exact same diameter as that of the tool driving shoulders when manufactured. My prior U.S. Pat. No. 4,339,865 is incapable of removal or insertion of a bearing without insertion of the tool through an existing central open area in the bearing.
The apparatus of the present invention provides an adjustable bearing drive shoulder that, in one embodiment, is maintained in full contact with an outer surface of the bearing to be removed to provide maximum driving force, without slippage, and without removal of an internally disposed mechanism from its working position. In another embodiment, the apparatus is inserted into the bearing cup from an unencumbered internal diameter and spread to any desired diameter, for bearing cup removal, by threadedly raising a lower inverted cone that is carried on a driving shaft and disposed under the bearing cup.